UPDATE: Cakes & Pre-Purchase Tickets

[MsEricka]

I also received one cake on a toon instead of four. However that was a "made up" toon just to receive the birthday cake and it was deleted afterwards.

All other toons had no issues that I can remember.. well I did get 4 ham stuck in a wall

[Cordelia]

It doesn't bother me that the pre-order was bugged. It's Turbine, they're all about bugs. What bothers me is that they're still selling them. I was sold a pre-oder ticket 2 days after they knew the tickets would not provide me with what I paid for.

There's a big difference between technical issues and dishonest, unethical sales. Any sucker that has purchased the pre-order since the issue became known is a victim of the latter.

[BigLlewy]

Bugger. I jumped the gun already and didn't get squat on my expansion material. Djinn worked perfectly though

[Morph96070]

Not how it happened.

First, they denied it. Demanded people check their Hireling folders and such. Then they blamed it on the player, asking where they opened it and are they premium V.I.P. or otherwise. Then the community explained to them exactly what the problem was and what needed to be fixed in the code without even looking at the code.

Then they said it might take a while to fix. Then over a day later they admit to there really being a problem and telling everyone not to open their preorders.

Having followed this from the beginning,

First they replied to individual reports by suggesting they check hireling folders, make sure they had adequate inventory space, and to close and reopen the client - This would serve to make sure it wasn't user error or an appearance issue

Then they were getting more reports, and began gathering data in order to track down the bug(s)

After research, they confirmed that a verifiable, repeatable set of bugs were occuring, and began working on a fix, telling people that it could take a while to fix.

People didn't notice/pay attention to the "Known Issue" so they put a great big sign that said "DON'T DO THIS, IT'S BROKEN"


Same series of events, looked at logically, and without assuming a conspiracy to make sure as many as possible were affected.

[Machination]

OK, so the 6 year old birthday cake I fed to the genie on several toons. One delivered perfect, two delivered stack of 1X item not 5X as stated, and one received nothing. I am really glad that they took the time to say "no need to put in a ticket", because its not worth the time of putting in a ticket for this, I can imagine they are swamped with tickets right now.

Now what is really disappointing, is my experience with purchasing the Underdark pack yesterday, it goes like this:

1. I tried to several hours to pay with paypal, it just hung on the confirmation page (blank), and reload/back/start over/re-do did not work. All produced the same result which was this hanging blank page. Checked my paypal account, no record of any attempt of a transaction.

2. Tired of the above scenario and not wanting to wait days for a ticket response, I use my credit card to purchase the Underdark pack and the 11,000 points bundle, for a total of 139.98 USD. It worked, first time. Fantastic I thought.

3. I cut the confirmation text, paste it in my notepad and save it. Proceeded to logout of everything and follow instructions to "activate" the Underdark expansion. Now THANK GOD I cut and paste the text, because I never received a confirmation email.

4. Login to myaccount.turbine.com account. I enter the product activation code into the field (as per instructions), then I get this whacky message:

You cannot upgrade a suspended subscription. Please reactivate the subscription first and try again. [err: 29306]
ATTENTION: One or more of your subscriptions has been suspended or downgraded from VIP status due to non-payment. Please re-enter your billing information or apply a Game Card now to reactivate your subscription(s). After successfully updating your billing information, click either “Resume” or “Get Unlimited Access” to restore the subscription`s former Active or VIP status.
Click here to update your billing information now.

OK, now for a couple of points to note:

a. Turbine stopped accepting my offshore credit card years ago (I live overseas), so I went Premium. At the time my credit card company told me that "yes, we gave them approval to charge" but it still was not accepted by Turbine....go figure. So I went Premium, and bought every pack through the DDO store via Paypal (which uses the same credit card mind you).

b. after seeing the above message, I proceed to take the SAME credit card that I bought the pack with, and use it to update my billing information at myaccount.turbine.com. Won't accept it. Same card I just bought the pack with......go figure. And, the same card I have used with Paypal for two years.

Now, WHY do they need my billing information if I am no longer VIP and do not have a subscription plan and am a Premium account?

And WHY won't it let me apply the product I just purchased to my account without my billing information?

Now, for the really great user experience:

1. I go to support.turbine.com search "err: 29306", and it pulls up this page: LINK, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the problem, and does not even contain the text "err: 29306". I suggest Turbine use Google or Bing or any search service instead of their own little search engine that is worthless from a user perspective. I would rather have ZERO results that IRRELEVANT results.

2. I proceed to submit a support ticket via support.turbine.com. Now I do get a confirmation of this via email. My favorite sentence from the email: "Responses typically take 3-5 business days. While you are awaiting your response please feel free to search for an answer to your question(s) within our Knowledge Base:=". Wow, 3-5 days of reading the knowledge base....by that time Turbine can outsource all their support to me! 3-5 days....really?

3. I was able to apply the 11,000 turbine point package to my account via DDO Store without a glitch. This was actually quite refreshing after the above experience.

Now, fortunately I am a patient man. I am OK not getting my XP tomes and other junk from the pack purchase until we can TR again anyway. But, I do assume my ticket is at the bottom of the totem pole at the moment, and I will be lucky to get a response within 5 days. Let's hope I don't actually have to ......... call them........I remember the last time I did that over the credit card issue years ago...I spent an entire week with several hours a night (I live 12 hours ahead of EST) on the phone on hold. BTW they really should pick better hold music and entertainment for people on hold.............

UPDATE: Got a response from Account Support. They changed my account to VIP status for 24 hours, I applied the code, and the pack was applied to my account. Now just waiting for the hotfix to come into effect, wait till it seems safe to use all the StUfF that is making my inventory overflow! Thanks Turbine for finding a workaround. I do suggest you revise the myaccount.turbine.com interface to allow people who are not VIP to not have to contact you to upgrade an account, or move to use the DDO store for all future pack upgrades, etc.

[XiaNYdE]

Why is it still being sold???? The product is faulty, acknowledged as faulty and still on sale, that is wrong right there!!

[DrenglisEU]

Then cake monster I can somewhat understand, during my 6 years in this game, it's not the first time the monster eats the cake and gives nothing. It's the pre-order ticket mullfunction that sucks.... seems teh TP comes ok but rest disapear. Hopefully you guys get this in order... better yesterday than soon(c).

[furbyoats]

Not how it happened.

First, they denied it. Demanded people check their Hireling folders and such. Then they blamed it on the player, asking where they opened it and are they premium V.I.P. or otherwise. Then the community explained to them exactly what the problem was and what needed to be fixed in the code without even looking at the code.

Then they said it might take a while to fix. Then over a day later they admit to there really being a problem and telling everyone not to open their preorders.

Sounds like troubleshooting instead of blame to me but...that's just my opinion.

[Alexxander]

Dear Turbine,

A glitch in your website caused me to purchase two pre-orders when I only intended to purchase one.

A glitch in your game caused me to not receive any of the pre-order stuff (that I had just effectively paid double price for).

Same thing happened to my friends account, double billed and then everything was messed up. They are furious.

Turbine should at least have sent an email that said don't use code to all the customers that purchased as soon as it issue was known. I get that they are trying to resolve the issue, just hope they fix the double billed and screwed up accounts. What is being done about the double billing?

Don't blame the customers on this one, it is obviously a Turbine issue and should have had a better customer service response.

[Victor_1]

Turbine, could you elaborate what should we do if we didn't receive 11k TP point from bundle please?

I didn't receive TP after activating code. Only noticed these issues after purchasing bundle pack
I am guessing I should just wait and see how things goes. But 140 USD is pretty big spending.
(to me it was like 112-4 USD thanks to current USD - JP Yen rate but anyways...) Any assurance would be appreciated.

[DDOisFree]

People who arent bothered about these problems most likely didnt experience them happening on their accounts.

No one spends $80 on a pre order with promised pre order items, and be all happy and ok with not recieving what they paid for, human nature would cause you to rage if this happened to you.

I didnt get my greater tome, pets and whatever other items I was supposed to after using my token, and I was beyond furious. Yes I know how to read, it happened to me long before there was either notice on the login window about either the cakes or tokens not working.

[Miacorva]

Glad to see that something is being done and that a hotfix is scheduled.
Really unfortunate that the bug happened, but glad to see a better than SoonTm response for once.

Good job Turbine for taking it seriously, hopefully you can all get some rest once it sorted out

[Sidewaysgts86]

I know im not the first person in here to ask this- but from what Ive seen there HASNT been a response yet, so im just hoping if WE ask enough, well get some kind of answer.

What are we do to if we DIDNT get (insert whatever it was that didnt show up for you here, for me- My cake trade in resulted in nothing).

All i know so far is that we SHOULDNT send in a ticket. Alrighty, I wont. But now what? Will this be solved later? Will I login at a later date to find myself the item i didnt get? Will I Have another cake? Will i have to contact someone later once the solution has been figured out? Anything would be helpful here.

[Rhomnibus]

I thought everyone knew ...

[imd187]

Anyone who has played this game for more than 1 update should know there are bugs every single release. Turbine has spent all of one day gathering information and planning a fix and posting it here. Modifying the launcher message or sending out an in game message takes longer.



Does it suck things are broken on release? Sure. But this is not news to anyone who has played the game more than a month.

Welcome to DDO.

Part 1) Modifying should not take longer, I am a programmer myself. Though their focus should be on making sure there is a problem then posting warnings(in my mind deactivating the pre order so no-one elsee is affected.), The fixing the problem. The in-game msg is annoying more then helpful

Part 2)
Should not be this way. I read the notes, if I am not overly excited about it, or a couple of hours later. Things happen, always does, but to blame the person for dropping $30- $80 and then jumping into using items they just paid for is not correct either. People get excited over it and want to enjoy their newly paid for things. its human nature. Now if they used it on 2+ chars, its their fault totally. If it not working on 1 dont bother with any more, because it could be a waste.

Developing software takes time and I have had bugs in mine that didn't show up until last round of checking and the software broke. Unusable. Sucked. But things happen, we live, we learn, and we accept. If not, too bad, they will either drop the game title or replace you. Sucks I know but that is the blunt truth.

[imd187]

I know im not the first person in here to ask this- but from what Ive seen there HASNT been a response yet, so im just hoping if WE ask enough, well get some kind of answer.

What are we do to if we DIDNT get (insert whatever it was that didnt show up for you here, for me- My cake trade in resulted in nothing).

All i know so far is that we SHOULDNT send in a ticket. Alrighty, I wont. But now what? Will this be solved later? Will I login at a later date to find myself the item i didnt get? Will I Have another cake? Will i have to contact someone later once the solution has been figured out? Anything would be helpful here.

Would u want them to update us every five minutes or work on the problem? I choose the later of the 2.

[imd187]

People who arent bothered about these problems most likely didnt experience them happening on their accounts.

No one spends $80 on a pre order with promised pre order items, and be all happy and ok with not recieving what they paid for, human nature would cause you to rage if this happened to you.

I didnt get my greater tome, pets and whatever other items I was supposed to after using my token, and I was beyond furious. Yes I know how to read, it happened to me long before there was either notice on the login window about either the cakes or tokens not working.

Im sorry you have anger issues, I did spend the $80, Didn't see anything in launcher window, didn't look too hard either. Have stuff missing too, but to be filled with rage over some small like this is purely pointless, it will get solved and we all move on.

[imd187]

Sounds like troubleshooting instead of blame to me but...that's just my opinion.

It is just trouble shooting, not blaming. I agree fully.

[imd187]

Not how it happened.

Then the community explained to them exactly what the problem was and what needed to be fixed in the code without even looking at the code.

Then they said it might take a while to fix. Then over a day later they admit to there really being a problem and telling everyone not to open their preorders.

So where in the code is the problem, what line? Which file? What EXACTLY is the problem? What needs to be fixed in the code? If you can answer these questions with out being broad about(i.e. in the part that deals with preorder stuff, blah blah blah), then maybe you should apply for a programming job for Turbine/Atari, inc.

Seriously, you obviously dont know what your talking about.

[Avatar4]

Im sorry you have anger issues, I did spend the $80, Didn't see anything in launcher window, didn't look too hard either. Have stuff missing too, but to be filled with rage over some small like this is purely pointless, it will get solved and we all move on.

I agree completely. I spent the $80, didn't get the items on the first character who tried it, and submitted a ticket. It got updated within a couple hours that this is a known issue under investigation. I think they're doing fine so far. Just work on it, fix it, and let us know when it's fixed. This isn't that big a deal.